What is a 'Hero' costume in TV wardrobe departments?

June 22, 2020 5:05 AM

When costumes from TV shows are labelled 'Hero' by the wardrobe department, what does it mean?

I bought some prop clothes from a TV show on ebay recently, and the wardrobe labels inside the shoes say ‘Name of character’ and ‘Hero’ underneath.

I didn’t think much of it, but just saw this outfit pop up on ebay as worn by Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland, and it’s also clearly labelled ‘Hero’ – both in the sales listing and on the tags that come from the wardrobe department.

The outfit I bought was one of numerous outfits worn by the character, and not a particularly heroic outfit/from an episode that involved unusual heroism.

Does it have a specific meaning? Googling just brings me lots of TV superhero costumes.

posted by penguin pie to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

Response by poster: FWIW the costume I bought was also from Homeland, though not a Carrie Mathison costume, so I guess it could be a HL thing, but I assume it must mean something specific.
posted by penguin pie at 5:06 AM on June 22, 2020

Best answer: There may be multiple instances of a costume, with various levels of quality and detail. A "hero" costume or prop is the one that'll look the best in shots where the camera can see lots of detail.
posted by sourcequench at 5:09 AM on June 22, 2020 [27 favorites]

..the term is used in CG animation as well. Generally a prop that's modelled/surfaced to stand up to close scruntiny. The particular scene is sometimes flagged as a hero shot.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:15 AM on June 22, 2020 [4 favorites]

Used for closeups, and therefore kept as clean as possible - so not worn in scenes with blood, cooking, dust, etc.

There would be other identical versions used for messy scenes, or possibly distressed to show the passage of time. For instance in a movie where the characters are on a journey and their clothing gets more tattered and dirty with each scene- the hero outfit would be the original, perhaps used in the earliest scenes in the film, or for flashback scenes, when the outfit needed to look new.

It’s a term used in puppetry as well- the hero puppet isn’t used for anything messy- for instance a scene when Ernie is in the bath and may get soap bubbles on the fabric of his “skin”, the hero wouldn’t be used for that scene, to avoid wear and tear.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 7:09 AM on June 22, 2020 [9 favorites]

"Hero" is also used this way in photography. A friend told me about a job for a cooking magazine. They set up the shot and lighting with one plate of food, which became tired and wilted, and then whisked out another fresh-looking plate called the "hero food" for the final shot.
posted by JonJacky at 10:28 AM on June 22, 2020 [3 favorites]

The same terminology is used for props on film. A "hero" prop is the one that the character brandishes prominently at the camera, the one that looks best/is the "right" look for the prop. For example, in Star Wars there were many many lightsabers made for various aspects of the shoot...some foam that could be throw around, some that could have "blades" inserted, etc. The Hero lightsaber is the one that gets the closeup shot being held by the main character.
posted by griffey at 6:27 AM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]